Dancing with Parkinson’s is a movement started by David Leventhal, a professional dancer in Brooklyn, New York in 2002. The initiative has expanded to include chapters all over the United States and continues to expand into the international community with chapters in Canada, the UK and Australia among others. The mission of Dancing with Parkinson’s is to provide dance classes with live music to enrich the lives of people with Parkinson’s disease as well as their families, friends, and caregivers. Bloomington’s own chapter was founded by Weezie and David Smith, who sat down for an interview with WFHB Correspondent Jennifer Whitaker to talk about their own experience and the Bloomington chapter.

For more information about Bloomington’s Dancing with Parkinson’s group, contact Weezie Smith at (812) 336-2429. You can also find out more at the Bloomington Chapter’s facebook page.

Award-winning filmmaker Bennett Singer gave the keynote address this year at the City of Bloomington’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Celebration. Singer most recently produced and directed the film, “Brother Outsider,” which chronicles the life of Bayard Rustin, and openly gay civil rights activist who worked closely with Dr. King. Besides Singer, the event also featured speeches by Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan, Monroe County Commissioner Iris Kiesling, Indiana University Vice Provost Martin McCrory and others. Musical performers included the Indiana University African American Choral Ensemble and the University Elementary School Choir.

A “Reclaim MLK Day” action was held last night along State Road 46 in Bloomington. The demonstration focused on the issue of police mistreatment of African-Americans and recent calls for justice for those victims. WFHB correspondent David Murphy was on the scene to talk to some of the participants for today’s WFHB community report.

For a second time, U.S. Rep. Todd Young authored legislation to increase the number of hours employees have to work in order to receive healthcare from their employers. The bill has passed in the House of Representatives. As it heads now to the Senate, WFHB News Director Alycin Bektesh explores what the impact of Representative Young’s bill would be here in his hometown of Bloomington.

Indiana has among the most restrictive regulations on the sale of alcohol in the country. Recently, there has been an effort to legalize the purchase of alcohol on Sundays, and a state representative has introduced legislation on the matter. WFHB Correspondent David Murphy speaks with Grant Monahan, President of the Retail Council, a spokesperson for Hoosiers for Sunday Sales, and Patrick Tamm, C.E.O. of the Indiana Association of Beverage Retailers, about their conflicting opinions on the legislation, for today’s WFHB Community Report.

There is increasing pressure on K-12 schools to examine their policies for punishing students, particularly because research now shows black students are punished more severely than white students. Correspondent Joe Crawford brings us this story about how local schools are dealing with the issue for today’s WFHB community report.

In the wake of national unrest regarding police action killings of unarmed black men, Bloomington Police Chief Mike Diekoff reached out to the local chapter of the NAACP and the Bloomington Commission on the Status of Black Males to talk to community leaders about strengthen communication between police and citizens. Today, we hear from Chief Diekoff about community engagement issues, for today’s feature report.

A case that had been scheduled for a hearing in front of the Indiana Supreme court this week could have large implications for offenders on probation state wide – WFHB news director Alycin Bektesh has the report.

The Monroe County Probation Department received 1620 new offenders in 2013.

The long running dispute between Indiana Governor Mike Pence and State Superintendent of Education Glenda Ritz seems to have switched battlegrounds.

Both won their respective offices on fundamentally opposing education policy platforms. Pence adheres to the nation-wide Republican promotion of what has been labelled “school choice”, which means the use of public funds to finance vouchers for private schools and turning under-performing public schools into privately controlled charter schools.

Ritz, a former school librarian, teacher’s union leader, and public education activist, ran on a platform of strengthening public schools and against the increasing emphasis on high stakes state-wide tests, the state-run school grading system, the shift to performance based teacher pay, and what she and her allies saw as the general devaluation of the teaching profession.

This ideological opposition was aggravated when e-mails were discovered showing that Ritz’s predecessor – Tony Bennett, a former gym teacher and the GOP candidate who Ritz defeated – had tried to manipulate the school grading system for the benefit of a favored charter school while he was in office. Republicans blamed Ritz for the e-mail release. Tensions mounted when, soon after Ritz took office, Pence created the Center for Education and Career Innovation, C.E.C.I., to reside within his office and staffed with his personal appointees. Ritz viewed Pence’s creation of a parallel education department as an attempt to usurp her policy making power.

Ritz sued Pence, charging a violation of her constitutional powers. The suit was dismissed on a technicality last fall. However, this issue became moot when Pence announced last week that he was dissolving his education center effective February 20th. He coupled this move with an announcement that he would be requesting the state assembly pass legislation allowing the state board of education to elect its chair. The superintendent is by law automatically chair of the board. However, the Governor appoints the other ten members of the board.

Mark Stoops, member of the state senate for district 40, which includes all of Bloomington and most of Monroe and Brown Counties, is a member of the Senate Education and Career Development Committee.

“I’d like to think Pence saw the writing on the wall and I think what this means is they’ve decided to go after Ritz and make her elected position an appointed position,” Stoops says. “That’s a real problem.”

Since the mid-19th century Indiana’s constitution has recognized the office of education superintendent as separate from all other branches of state government and it is unique under state law in being the only elected government department head. Consequently, Ritz and others have seen Pence’s efforts to usurp Ritz’s power as being in violation of the state constitution and the state code.

However, Senator Stoops does not hold to this view.

“I believe that the legislature votes and approves a measure to remove Superintendent of Public Instruction as automatic chair of the Board of Education, that would probably be legal,” Stoops says.

Since her election, Ritz has found support in the state assembly for many of her policies, in particular the senate supported maintaining federal Common Core standards.

However, Senator Stoops thinks that the majority of the members of the General Assembly will go along with Pence’s campaign against the current superintendent of education.

“Unfortunately I think the message from the past election is that the public doesn’t really care what they do and they’ll use that as an opportunity to push more privatized public education,” Stoops says.

Senator Stoops noted that several candidates running as democrats during the last election, some of them teachers and principals, and strong advocates of public schooling, were leading in the polls up to the election. However, they were defeated after a last minute mailing from the Republicans claiming support for public education, and promising to increase funding for the public system.

“I think we have to be wary because some schools are seriously close to being in a position of being taken over, and people need to understand that this is imminent,” Stoops says. “This is something we could see in Monroe County pretty soon.”

Indiana already leads the nation in the creation of charter schools. Governor Pence has promised to increase the pace of this process.